Elcot Retreat's Padel Court Faces Noise Backlash

Elcot Retreat Hotel says it will install acoustic walls to dampen noisy padel balls after a court it built has run for a year without planning permission.

West Berkshire Council rejected the retrospective application and wants more data on how noisy the court is, though councillors said they want to encourage padel and would consider a better, full proposal - possibly a covered court.

A publicity stunt before the western area planning meeting saw about 120 people cram onto the court to show how popular it is.

Officers rejected a requirement for a noise barrier because there is no detail on how much it would help and erecting a large screen would itself need permission in the North Wessex Downs National Landscape.

"It has been described to me is that it is like a pheasant shoot all day everyday," said Tony Vickers (Lib Dem, Hungerford and Kintbury).

Nearby resident Heather Thompson said: "The padel court is close to our home and last year the hotel wrote to us saying they were running a trial, after the council rejected the application for two padel courts in the walled garden. The trial was never approved and the disruption has been constant. The last year has been as bad as we feared. Play runs from seven in the morning to nine at night. What makes it so hard is the contrast. We cannot open our windows or sit in our gardens without hearing it. We live in the North Wessex Downs National Landscape - a very quiet rural setting. And against that quiet every shot stands out. Padel is not like tennis, every strike of the racket is a loud crack with no regular rhythm. You can't tune it out because you never know when the next one will come."

She added: "The old tennis court was an occasionaly use for hotel guests and never troubled us. This is different."

Ms Thompson said the hotel claimed 1,500 players were registered and the court was floodlit for up to 14 hours a day. "The court was built without permission and is still running," she said. "I have nothing against the people who play, but they come for an hour and play. We live with it all day. Enforcement should follow up so it doesn't run through an appeal."

Speaking for the players, former councillor Claire Rawles said: "This is the only publicly accessible padel court in West Berkshire. Otherwise they have to go to Swindon, Basingstoke and Reading to play. It meets an unmet demand for padel in the district. It has lower cost off-peak options too. The court has become more of a place to play, but an inclusive, welcoming community."

The hotel said the application had been made on the tennis court and it did not think a separate planning application was needed. "We do not believe padel court traffic is that significant but we will at our own cost to improve the passing places," it said. "Acoustics - the level of noise is not unduly high for a residential community but we will install an acoustic wall to reduce the noise. The flood lights are lower than the ones in the car park, and they have timers so they can't be used out of hours."

Niki Hinman, Local Democracy Reporter